The present invention is generally directed to a fifth wheel hitch and, more specifically, to a fifth wheel hitch that requires reduced or no lubricant.
Fifth wheel hitches, which are utilized throughout the trucking industry, include a number of moving components, which have required lubricants (e.g., grease) to prevent excessive wear. In general, service technicians have liberally applied lubricants to various components of the fifth wheel hitch to prevent excessive wear. However, applying grease to the fifth wheel requires periodic service and over greasing the fifth wheel can potentially result in harm to the environment (e.g., fire hazard, contamination of storm and/or ground water) as any excess grease may be dispersed into the environment, during operation of an associated tractor trailer unit. In an attempt to reduce lubricant utilization, a number of manufacturers have implemented greaseless fifth wheel top plate pads, as well as grease free plastic and specialty metal front lock and bearing pocket inserts. A number of coupler manufacturers have also utilized protective layers that are painted or electroplated to fifth wheel components to inhibit corrosion. However, in general, these protective layers have not enhanced wear of the components or provided lubricity.
Further, in general, metal objects that are exposed to various environmental conditions suffer from oxidation, corrosion and rusting. Typically, surfaces of metal objects have been protected by painting, cladding, coating or electroplating the metal surfaces with a protective layer. However, these techniques have proven somewhat undesirable as such protective layers have frequently required partial removal and application of another protective layer to the surface of the metal object when the original protective layer has separated from the surface of the metal object. As a result, researchers have developed various other processes that alloys materials to surfaces of metal objects. For example, one process known as laser induced surface improvements (LISI) is directed to alloying a desired metal to a surface of a metal object with a laser. Apparatuses and techniques for implementing the LISI process are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,961,861; 5,985,056; 6,016,227; and 6,229,118; which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
What is needed is a fifth wheel hitch whose components exhibit enhanced wear and corrosion resistance, while minimizing the application of applied lubricants.